In this way we resolved the problem of what our actions were to be in the immediate future.
Chapter 21
Armed Peasantry Go to the Aid of the City Workers; the Aleksandrovsk Revkom and the Commission of Inquiry
On January 3, 1918, the Red Guard Commander Bogdanov addressed an appeal for help to the peasants and workers of Gulyai-Pole.
During the night of January 4, our group issued an appeal to the peasants and workers, inviting them to take up arms. On the same night I handed over my chairmanship in the Soviet to a comrade, and placed myself at the head of the anarchist detachment, composed of several hundred peasants. Fully armed, we set out for Aleksandrovsk.
I recall that just before leaving Gulyai-Pole our detachment, at my insistence, elected its own commander. I refused the position because I foresaw that in Aleksandrovsk my presence might be required away from the detachment arranging liaison between the city and the village. The detachment then elected as commander my brother, Savva Makhno.
A crowd of people gathered alongside the detachment. As we were leaving, the old men said to their sons who were in our ranks:
“You are going to your deaths. And we accept that. We will find the strength to take up your weapons and fight for your ideas, ideas which were unknown to us not so long ago but which we now accept. We will defend them to the death, if necessary. Don’t forget that, dear sons!”
And the sons replied:
“Thanks to you for having raised us. Now we are grown up and able to assert in life the ideas of freedom, equality, and solidarity. We would be happy to see our fathers fighting for these great ideals. But for the time being, follow our actions from a distance and, if we fail in the struggle against the enemies of the Revolution, you will defeat them here — and defeat them forever.”
Our farewells were touching.
Each of us knew where we were going and why. As soon as we were seated in the carts carrying us to the train station, we burst into revolutionary songs. Happy smiles lit up the faces of these young revolutionary peasants, the people whom Marx and followers regarded as beasts of burden fit only for obeying orders. Now here they were, conscious of themselves and aware of their duty to the Revolution, hurrying to help the urban workers. For decades the socialists of all stripes had considered urban workers as their own cadre through which they would seize power and begin to rule over others.
These peasants, knowing the danger they faced, did not hesitate to hasten to the city. They weren’t the kind of revolutionaries who like to take part in parades and whose radicalism is purely verbal — no! They were true working class militants, devoted to the anarchist ideal. They might make mistakes, but their mistakes were honest ones and happened only because they were making an effort to put their anti-authoritarian ideals into practice.
There were between 800 and 900 of them—and more than 300 were members of the Anarchist Communist Group. They went to the city knowing that the urban workers were their brothers, were just as hostile as they to the domination of some by others, that they became upholders of authority only when, uprooted from their class, they fell under the sway of politicians.
As they left Gulyai-Pole, the peasants knew that the happiness and freedom of the toilers of town and country depended on the going forward of a truly social Revolution, and so they hastened to the aid of the city which was being besieged by the enemies of social revolution, in fact, of Revolution in general.
Our detachment arrived in Aleksandrovsk without incident. The city was quiet. The Red Guards were ensconced in their trains, only a few patrols roamed the streets.
By contrast the Aleksandrovsk authorities were engaged in feverish activity. The Revkom, composed of Bolsheviks and Left SRs, had at first tried to regulate the life of the workers. But they did not succeed: the Federation of Anarchists stood in the way, keeping the workers up to date about the doings of the newly-elected municipal authorities. Then the Revkom decided to confine itself to setting up a united front against the Counter-Revolution. With this in mind they proposed that the Aleksandrovsk Federation of Anarchists send two delegates to the Revkom. The Federation appointed comrades M. Nikiforova and Yasha. M. Nikiforova was immediately elected deputy chair of the Revkom. On the same day the Revkom asked our detachment to appoint our own representative. After consulting with the Aleksandrovsk anarchists who had always supported us, the detachment appointed me to represent the detachment at the Revkom. Joining the Revkom was a necessity of the moment. Refusing to take part in the Revkom would, we believed, have a negative effect on any future ideological struggle with the Left Bloc.
Upon our arrival in Aleksandrovsk, we protested against the continued detention of political prisoners: “Why have the prisons not been emptied?” Numerous peasants and workers had been incarcerated for refusing to recognize the regimes of Kerensky and the Central Rada. One of the Bolsheviks explained to us that they had not been freed because it was thought they would also rebel against the power of the Left Bloc.
After consulting with the workers who had tipped us off about these prisoners who were languishing in the crowbar hotel, we decided to send a representative immediately to the Revkom to demand their release. If the Revkom refused, we planned to force open the gates of the prison, free the prisoners, and burn down the prison.
Our detachment delegated me to go to the Revkom about this. The Revkom empowered me, the Left-SR Mirgorodsky, the SR Mikhailovsky, and some others to liberate the prison. We went there, had a look around, and listened to the grievances of the prisoners. Then we went to the prison office, exchanged opinions, and left. Our delegation was incomplete — the most important figure was missing. That was the Bolshevik Lepik who, behind the scenes, had just been appointed to be in charge of the Cheka; this was concealed from us at the time.
For me personally, having been incarcerated twice in that prison and knowing how dirty and uncomfortable it was, it was painful to leave without freeing anybody. But I limited myself only to expressing some criticisms of Lepik and, together with Comrade Mirgorodsky, got in a cab and returned to the Revkom.
After supper we all got together and decided to forge ahead. The prison was emptied.
Still acting as agents empowered by the Revkom, I and the Left-SR Mirgorodsky were then delegated to the Front-line Military-Revolutionary Commission at the Red Guard unit of Bogdanov. This was the first armed group from the north which had entered Ukraine under the pretext of “helping the Ukrainian workers and peasants in their struggle against the counter-revolutionary Central Rada.”
I was elected Chair of the Commission by the Red Guards from Petrograd (Vyborg district), and Comrade Mirgorodsky was elected Secretary. The Commission had seven members. We were brought a stack of files from the Commander’s office, dossiers on the prisoners incarcerated in the railway wagons of the Stolypin-type which were coupled to the troop train.
We were asked to examine the dossiers and give our conclusions. But Comrade Mirgorodsky and I protested against such a procedure. We insisted that we could in all conscience examine the paper work only in the presence of the accused against whom this paper work had been put together. Then we could ask the accused to explain to us who he was, under what circumstances he was arrested, where, etc. (Our fellow members on the Commission, Petrograders, agreed with our reasoning but, as subordinates of the Commander, were unable to protest with us.)
The Commander was indignant at our behaviour but felt unable to ask the Aleksandrovsk Revkom to replace us with different people for moral, political, and strategic considerations. Indeed the Revkom was unlikely to agree and a whole storm would be raised against him, a storm which he and his Red Guards might not survive.